


It's Getting Dark, Darling

by i_want_you_to_make_me (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Use, M/M, PRF, Phone Calls, Post Reichenbach, Sherlock's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 22:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/i_want_you_to_make_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Sherlock understood the exchange. He pulled out the small bag of white powder and replaced it with the phone before calling John. One drug for another."</i>
</p><p>-</p><p>In which it is Post-Reichenbach and Sherlock is having trouble coping without John. So, Mycroft makes a deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Getting Dark, Darling

**Author's Note:**

> The title and quote come from the song [Thistle and Weeds by Mumford and Sons](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_YJhmGKTxk), which I would suggest listening to while reading this fic. My American friend [Krissie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/smitey_mcsmiterten/profile) and my American self were the only ones to edit this fic and so I apologize for it being very Americanized. Please let me know if there are any glaringly obvious errors with spelling, grammar, or use of slang.

  
_Spare me your judgements and spare me your dreams_   
_Cause recently mine have been tearing my seams_   
_I sit alone in this winter clarity which clouds my mind_   
_Alone in the wind and the rain you left me_   
_It's getting dark darling, too dark to see_   
_And I'm on my knees, and your faith in shreds, it seems_   


_\-----_

Sherlock was shaking with rage, grief, and want for something that he couldn’t name. He had tried all day to sit down and get on his laptop and do something progressive, but his hands could not stay still and his transport was infecting his precious mind with emotions and it all just needed to go away. The solution was simple.

The box was white and slim. A hypodermic needle sat temptingly wrapped in the blood red silk, the metal shining dully from nonuse and no recent cleaning. He had his solution prepped in the kitchen. The exact amount of cocaine had been dissolved and was boiling weakly in the kitchen. It didn't really need to be sterilized but he liked the burn when it entered his veins and took away every ounce of pain in his body.

He pulled the needle out with slender fingers. He carried it gently and smiled at it like one would smile at an old friend. He had not missed the feeling since John, but the human drug wasn't available. His seven percent solution was all he had.

He really shouldn’t have been surprised to walk into the living room and notice simultaneously that the cocaine was not boiling, and had actually disappeared completely along with the pearly white powder on the counter next to it, a small block box sat on top of the mountains of paper on the desk, and Mycroft was sitting in an armchair directly in front of him.

“Piss off.” he said immediately, standing in the doorway, annoyed.

“Did you really expect me to let you do that to yourself?” Mycroft tsked, his eyebrows raised in a controlled look of questioning.

“No, but after all this,” he hissed, “you owe me.” He heard Moriarty repeat the inverse of the words in his head, as if he needed reminding.

Mycroft sighed, disapprovingly. “I know. That’s why instead of letting you do that, I’ve found what I think will be a seventeen percent solution to the problem you seem to be facing now.”

“Even you can’t solve frustration.” he muttered dryly, walking over to the two armchairs facing each other, and exchanged the needle for the black box and sat down in his housecoat with a flourish.

“Oh, it’s not frustration, Sherlock.” he replied, the smugness in his voice sounding as if he had said ‘Checkmate.’ instead.

“Oh.”

Sherlock had never felt John’s presence in the room more than at that moment. ‘What’s he going on about, Sherlock?’ he’d say, his eyebrows contorting in a way that only John’s could.

“Missing John has nothing to do with this.” he replied evenly, through gritted teeth. It’s what he would have said if John had actually been in the room. He would have ignored him, but stated the obvious for his benefit. His chest physically ached, and he needed to take a deep breath that did not go unnoticed by Mycroft.

“It has everything to do with this, dear brother.” he said, with a tight smile before standing up, using his umbrella as support. “Make sure to mute it, yes?” Before nodding, and walking out the door.

Sherlock was very unsurprised to open the box and find a simple flip phone as the only content in the box. It fit simply into a cardboard slot, and Sherlock pulled it out and flipped it open in one fluid motion.

The phone had no messages and no activity in the call log at all, as expected. The phone had no signs of previous use, so this added up, but the date and time had been set correctly, showing at least enough use to set it up for him.

Pulling the contacts up he saw exactly what he had feared and hoped for (not really hope, he had deduced it but it was not easy for him to wrap his mind around the realization which was saying quite a lot). The name _John_ was written in plain text followed by a familiar number. It was the only contact. Of course Mycroft had already set the phone up to be untraceable and only to ever call John. Most likely only once. He had his own phone after all.

He wasn’t sure what he expected when John answered. John was incredible, but also ordinary. But ordinary in an incredible way. He couldn’t realize it was Sherlock.

“Hello?” John said.

Sherlock’s hand flew to his mouth almost as if by accident as he closed his eyes. “Hello.” he whispered, the words spilling from the gaps in his fingers. The phone was muted. John couldn’t hear how broken he was just like he couldn’t hear how broken John was.

“Hello?” John drawled, and a dry sob pushed its way past Sherlock’s parted lips. He had allowed the poison to seep into his mind, and he was letting it out. John was the cure to the grief that hung heavy on his bones and nestled deep into the crevices of his mind.

“Mate, I think you have the wrong number.” he said, because John’s weakness was his kindness. His infinite patience and understanding.

“I am so sorry, John.” he whispered, and he wanted to giggle manically because he had never apologized for anything before, but of course John could change that.

John gave a sigh into the phone before hanging up and Sherlock wished he still had his 7% solution, so he could force the cocaine into his veins, and the thick clots of pain out.

~

 

The second call was no different from the first. John was a touch more suspicious, and Sherlock talked back, but did not cry. He told John how much he missed him being there.

He hadn’t really noticed or thought he would miss him in the tedious but hasty planning of the events at St. Bart’s. The emotional response had been completely unpredicted. He had thought he could go through the process with a proper amount of play-acting and a healthy dose of detachment.

He had been wrong. The sound of John’s voice and the gravity of their inevitable separation lodged in his throat, his chest, but most astonishingly, his mind. And then John had been so brilliantly John. Never faltering in his trust in Sherlock, even when he had so deeply rooted in his own mind to trust no one.

He was a stunning beacon of sheer idiocy and overwhelming loyalty as he said with no hesitation at all, “You could.” And my God, Sherlock had cried. No play-acting. He was reduced to tears. He had deleted all previous times he had cried, but had cataloged that the majority were instances of physical pain and a bit of mental pain as well before he had learned to block out harsh words. He had kept this one though, tucked safely in John’s wing in his mind palace. It had started out as a box and had expanded into a whole section, because there was so much to learn about his doctor. How he liked his tea, which jumper he liked best, what tone of voice he had to use to make the crease that appeared in the middle of his forehead when he was confused, the soft cluck in the back of his throat when Sherlock lodged a scalpel in the middle of a human heart, how he liked to find Sherlock in his room when he woke up from a nightmare, but would still throw the pillow next to him at his head and tell him that he should stop being a tosser and leave. Each room in John’s wing represented a room in 221B, except his fake suicide. That had an ugly dark room at the end of the hall that was completely empty.

The second call was no different from the first, but it was two weeks later when Sherlock had found that he had talked aloud to John. He had stopped mid-sentence, before he calmly stood, buttoned his suit, and walked out.

He walked back into the flat with 10 grams of cocaine in a hidden pocket in his suit jacket. The box sat on his desk again even though four days ago he had broken the older phone when he threw it against the wall in a bout of frustration because three thefts were connected to Moriarty but he couldn’t leave his flat because John was nearby and he did not have a disguise that John had not already seen on him because his damn shipment of clothing hadn’t come in and Mycroft had been elusive ever since dropping off the first phone. Sodding bastard.

Sherlock understood the exchange. He pulled out the small bag of white powder and replaced it with the phone before calling John. One drug for another.

 

~

 

The third call was a bit different, and the circumstances around why the phone had appeared in his room were too. Sherlock was in Russia. He was tackling a child sex-slave ring that had connections to Moriarty. It was his first time out of London since his jump. Sherlock had not gone out to seek drugs, he had not tried to find somewhere he could go where everything would fade away with a small bag, but the black box had appeared on the desk anyways. It had been there when he arrived as if Mycroft knew that leaving London meant leaving John and meant Sherlock’s body shaking when he reached the hotel room.

He clicked through grainy CCTV photos as the phone rang in his ear.

“This is Mycroft.” John said as way of greeting. “I don’t know what kind of sick joke you think this is but Sherlock is...” his voice cracked and Sherlock made a low noise in the back of his throat, “Sherlock is dead because of you. I don’t know what you think you’ll gain from trying to spy on me, God knows how with these blocked phone calls, but it’d better not bloody well be forgiveness because that ran out when I-”

John stopped and Sherlock’s eyebrows rose in confusion until he heard John choking back a sob even though his voice had been relatively steady.

“No, no, wrong. John. No.” he said fervently, dragging his hand through his curls. “Please. Don’t cry.” Because Sherlock was utter rubbish at comfort and if John had been with him he would have received an awkward pat on the back. He wasn’t, but it still helped. Spilling out emotions now gave him a clearer mind for later when he needed it to be running at full capacity.

John took a deep, steadying breath.

“It ran out when I saw my best friend hit the pavement. So, fuck you, Mycroft.” John hissed before the line went dead.

Sherlock sat with the phone pressed to his face for a long time. He went over the conversation from an objective point of view and concluded with certainty that he hated himself and every inch of space between his body and John’s.

 

~

 

He was in Italy for 4 months before he called John for the fourth time.

He had needed to hear his voice sooner, and had bought mountains of every drug he could get his hands on, buying ridiculous amounts of drugs that disgusted him, trying to get the black box to appear on his desk, but Mycroft knew he bought them without the intent to use them, as always. It was a conversation that lacked words because Mycroft would still not answer the damn phone.

It was seeing John in a crowd that did him in. Same gait, same hair, same ridiculous choice of jumpers, in the middle of Venice, Italy on a crowded street. It took not even half a second for his brain to correct itself. There was no limp, the hair color was similar but not the same, but his taste in jumpers still stood firm.

He had not come back to the flat immediately afterwards to inject sweet oblivion into his veins but maybe with enough time he would have. Either way, the black box was on his desk and Sherlock didn’t even want it. He had been trying for months and now that it had happened completely on accident he loathed the black box. He hated it for the way it made him hate himself.

It was almost out of spite that he called John. Almost.

“For the love of-” John began, sighing. “This isn’t Mycroft. He told me it wasn’t him. Swore on Sherlock’s grave because he’s a bastard. So, I came to the conclusion that this is Moriarty. Well, thanks for checking in. Sherlock is still dead. Fuck you, too.” The line went dead.

His voice had been dripping with sarcasm, but Sherlock had been able to see past it into the tiredness and the fact that he hadn’t left the flat in an obscene amount of time and that John was mostly definitely not doing fine. He was getting worse. Sherlock stored this in his mind palace before closing the phone, pulling out his own phone and texting Mycroft, “Fix John. SH” putting it back in his pocket and leaving the flat to go back to work.

 

~

 

It is a year and an odd number of months after the fourth phone call. He is getting closer to the center of the web. The people are more important. They know Sherlock but like the rest of the world, they think he’s dead. There was a particular man he was hunting now. He was a tall, young, skinny blonde with an addict’s build and personality. He was only 23, but ran a large portion of the drug smuggling done by the web in Romania

So Sherlock was in the back alleys of Romania chasing him down.

The man kept checking over his shoulder, and kept scanning street signs in the dim light and Sherlock knew he had the advantage. A quick memorization of the map of the area served him well. He ran into a decrepit, old building (so predictable) before turning to face Sherlock. Sherlock was running forward to lunge when he spoke.

“I’ve heard whispers of you still being alive." he hissed, “I’ve prepared for this." He grinned maliciously, pulling his phone from his pocket which confused Sherlock, because he should have pulled a knife. Why a cellphone?

"I know you have a heart. _He_ made sure we all knew. Not in your chest, but in a person. If you attack me, I'll kill him. We have people watching him. I press this button on my phone and he's gone. Get on your knees. Don't worry, I'll kill you quick."

Sherlock could read the bluff on every pore of his body. He lied easily, but you could see it if you really looked. His hands shook fractionally and it also helped that the screen of his phone was reflected in the glasses that had slid to the end of his sweaty nose.

He sped forward viciously, and the man tried to pull off sending a text or pressing a button but when Sherlock kept charging he began fumbling for his gun but he was too late. Sherlock tackled him and punched him in the temple. He punched him until he was unconscious and for a long time after that, each punch a little harder than the last.

He then pulled the gun from the man's waistband and shot him point blank in the forehead.

He stood, covered in blood and brain matter and slid his phone from his coat pocket. He texted Mycroft the address of the building and stood, shaking with impatience until the black car arrived. Mycroft stayed in London, but he had men in clean black suits everywhere. Sherlock was actually going to call Mycroft, _call Mycroft_ , when the town car pulled up. He shoved the body in and was running full speed to his flat within seconds because even though he was 99.9% certain John was fine, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he had read it all wrong. Sometimes his deductions were inaccurate.

The phone was on the table when Sherlock strode in because Mycroft always knew. Sherlock looked calm, cool, and collected but the panic would have been obvious to anyone who really knew him. He clicked the buttons using rote memory.

The phone rang and for the first time John didn't pick up. He didn't pick up his cellphone and Sherlock screamed in frustration.

He smoothed four nicotine patches over his skin, because John was a four patch problem. It wouldn't be enough, but it would curb the pain. He'd call John again, but repeatedly doing so would be very suspicious. So he waits.

He tries again in two hours, peeling two of the patches off his skin, and John answers this time.

"I tracked the number last time you called. Mycroft said he didn't think it was Moriarty but he didn't know. He seemed to be sure it wasn't."

Sherlock is the one to hang-up this time after really breathing for the first time in hours. John just needed to be okay.

 

~

 

He was high. Deliriously, disgustingly high.

The word John did not ache in his chest. Mycroft hadn’t been able to stop him. His solution was not a solution at all. Mycroft didn’t understand how much Sherlock could really feel. Hearing his voice had helped in a way that hurt worse. It left more scars. It was like being cut deeper with a blade but the wound would heal faster. It was hard to understand if that was better at all.

So, Sherlock picked the option that numbed the pain completely. He thought of John and smiled. Of course, Sherlock could keep himself perfectly in control but the boredom was gone, and the pain was gone. He had injected it for both. He was in Morocco and all he had was time on his hands. He was playing a game of cat and mouse but the mouse was so slow to make its next move. He had been waiting for ages.

Arriving at his rented villa, he found the black box waiting for him on the bamboo desk. He was taken aback, because that was the complete opposite of what he expected. But he smiled because John.

The idea of loving John came easily with the reduction of pain and boredom and all the unwanted feelings. A completely conscious and aware Sherlock would not even begin to delve into his feelings towards the doctor because it was just too hard to really pinpoint and understand. Feelings were not his forte. Lingering gazes and shoulders brushing could mean everything or nothing and Sherlock did not have the ability to know which. So he let them be, the thing between them evolving and changing and pulling them together and pulling them apart at the same time.

But with the drug came simplicity, and the ability to understand that friendship would never be the right word to describe Sherlock Holmes and his Doctor Watson. Love was a hardly a great leap.

So, without thought of consequences, he dialed the number, his lips upturned just barely at the corners.

“Stop calling this number. I should stop answering, but you might kill me or blow me up if I don’t but if you aren’t planning on talking to me, please just leave me alone.” John says, his voice wavering almost imperceptibly. “He’s all I can think about, and this does not help. Nothing in my life has changed and I don’t know if you’re the reason for it or not. Please talk to me. Give me answers.”

“Jo-” The realization hits him like ice cold water in his veins, pounding in his head and his lungs. He didn’t mute the phone. _He did not mute the phone._

The silence lasts for only a moment. “Sherlock?!” John says shrilly, his voice borderline a scream and he can hear hysterical sobbing before the line cuts dead and the phone screen shuts black.

No. No. This is not how this is supposed to go. Sherlock doesn’t make mistakes like this. He has no margin for error. _He is losing John._

Mycroft texts him for the first time since the first black box. “I hope you understand the consequences of your actions. MH”

And Sherlock thinks he does, later, when he’s overdosed in the middle of a beach on the edge of an African nation that he can’t even begin to remember the name of. And even with the drugs pushing thick and heavy through him, the pain does not subside or even fade at all.

He understands the consequences as Mycroft’s men drag him back to his villa, his convulsions not stopping until the medical personnel waiting inside are able to force him onto his bed. He does not die but he wishes he would.

~

 

It’s exactly one year and 6 months later and he only has one person left to take care of before it’s all over. Cocaine is present in his system at all times these days, but it brings him little comfort. He does not overdose again, though he has never actually tried to before. It just happens. Moran is smart, and he covers his tracks, but he is no Moriarty.

Doing drugs never stopped the pain, but it was too late for that. The addict inside of him had opened its jaw and it would stop at nothing for just a little bit more. He was disgusted with himself, but then again, he always was. He wore self-confidence well, but it was not as kind in return. He hated other people only a little more than he hated himself.

The goddamn black box was sitting on his desk in his hotel room in the States. After being so glaringly absent, it's decided quite randomly to make a reappearance. It was definitely random because Sherlock can still feel the rush of the high.

As he puts the phone to his ear, double checking it is muted, he realizes these calls don't revolve around him. Maybe John needs him.

When John picks up the phone, the answer becomes apparent.

"Hullo!" John says, hiccupping. "My secret admirer on the phone again? Funny how stuff like this changes.”

He giggles for a long time, and Sherlock can hear the swishing of alcohol over the phone as he takes another drink. His next breath has a sharp edge as he whispers with alarm, “John.”

“I was a secret admirer once. Well, I mean, I dunno if you can ever really have secrets with Sherlock Holmes, but he never said anything so it’s hard to tell. Of course, people always accused us of dating and what we had wasn’ friendship and I touched him far too much for him to really believe that I just wanted to be friends, I mean have you seen his butt?” John giggles some more, his words punctuated by soft ‘hics’, and Sherlock’s lips twitch at the sound, but afterwards, John’s voice gets more serious, “But he liked Irene and maybe Molly at the end or whatever Sherlock does when he doesn’ hate the person so I was always just there, y’know? I was okay with living like that ‘cause I mean Sherlock’s cool but he’s gone so it’s not okay anymore. It hurts worse ‘cause I never told him. He was brilliant and I told ‘em that, but never how lovely he was or that I needed him.” John’s voice has gone serious, and it breaks just a little. “I’ll never meet anyone like him. Never. My limp is back, and the nightmares are worse and they won’t go away again. They’re gonna stay there. I can’t see his beautiful face or sit in awe as he unravels the whole world without having to ask a single question. I shouldn’t miss him. Nobody else does. I mean they miss the stuff he did. Lestrade is in over his head, and Mycroft is just a tosser. But I miss the body parts, and the violin, and the ‘look’, and the cheekbones and I didn’ think I would, but now I’m the only one who does.

“Then, I hear his voice on this line. It went against everything I had set myself up to believe but it was his voice. Mycroft told me it was a recording, but the problem was that I believed it. I told myself Sherlock is alive and then had to lose him again because if I believe he’s still here then I will drive myself insane.” John makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, “I did when I first lost him. Sherlock was capable of more incredible things, what was coming back to life, right? So I believed it. It scared people. My sister told me I had lost my mind. Mycroft scheduled a rigorous therapy session and I came out hollow but now socially acceptable. But I know it was his voice when you called me that last time. And why would you not play more of his voice if it was a recording? What do you expect? But I can’t think like that. I’m not allowed.

“I tried to kill myself three months ago because of it,” John says, and he sounds casual, even though Sherlock slams his fist against the desk, “but Mycroft talked me out of it. I dunno how. I don’t want to talk to him again ever, but I do. He’s like you but not at all. He gives me cases sometimes though. I can hardly ever do much good, but I think he understands. It helps. Usually he sends me to chase after suspects. I’m sort of a volunteer at the Yard now. It’s hardly the same, but on the really hard days, my limp isn’t as bad, and so it’s ‘k. But anyways. Mycroft walked in on me with a whole bottle of pills down my throat, and he got me to the hospital before I could die. I’m fine now. Well, no I’m not. I haven’t been. But I’m not going to kill myself. That’s a start.”

John’s voice hitches, “I loved him. Stupid, right? I couldn’t imagine Sherlock even looking at me for longer than three seconds, so why would I be able to hold his interest for any length of time? I didn’ even know how far gone I was until he stopped being here. So, I did what the Watson family does best, and drank myself away. Sherlock’d be disappointed. But Sherlock’s dead so it doesn’t matter. I have to keep telling myself that.”

“Sometimes, I wake up, and maybe I was dreaming about him or something ‘cause I forget he’s dead, y’know? And so I wake up whole, and then it suddenly crashes down on me and those mornings are hard. My head hurts.” he pauses to sigh, and then take another swig of beer, “Goodnight.” he finishes, his words all biting the heels of its successor and some stumbling over the other, before he ends the call.

Sherlock punches a hole in the wall but it cannot even begin to compare to the all-consuming black hole in his chest that sucks the breath from his lungs and he feels more sober then he has in a year.

Sherlock does not touch an illegal substance again, and punches the wall every time his body quakes and shivers with withdrawal. He deserves the pain. He deserves worse.

 

~

 

Moran is in London. He is in London because he might be the biggest idiot alive. 221B is vacant. Mycroft does not tell him that’s where he’s going until the cab pulls up. He’s inside quickly, and Mrs. Hudson hugs him and cries and tells him she didn’t believe Mycroft when he told her that Sherlock was alive, but that she cleaned the flat anyways and that the boxes are still filled with his scientific equipment. It doesn’t matter right now, but he listens. She tells him he’s much quieter than she remembers. He agrees. John will have his work cut out for him when he sees Sherlock again.

Sherlock walks up the stairs and actually has to stop to take a deep breath when the stairs creak underneath his feet because it’s so familiar.

He walks in and understands why John left. The flat does not feel right without one of its occupants. It feels like a skeleton. The kettle isn’t going, crap telly isn’t playing, and Sherlock can’t smell John and so the whole flat feels completely the same and horribly different.

He stands in the doorways and takes it all in. The skull is still there, the smiley face is still there, the headphones are still in use by the skull of the bull, and Sherlock rubs a hand over his face.

The black box is sitting on the desk. Sherlock freezes. It is on the desk, an envelope beside it. It is on _his_ desk.

He is there in two long strides, popping the wax seal with his thumb and pulling out a letter signed by Mycroft. He reads quickly in silence and smiles as he folds the letter and slides it back into the envelope.

He is filled with anxious butterflies and he dials John’s number, and he begins to pace the flat.

The phone’s ringing feels like an eternity, and Sherlock is about to throw the phone against the wall out of sheer impatience when it connects.

“Look, about the last call, I was drunk and-” John begins.

Sherlock smiles, big and bright and real for the first time in three years.

“Hello, John.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> "Hello, John" is a parallel of the "Goodbye, John" from the Reichenbach Fall. This was done intentionally. (Sorry.)


End file.
